Do Economists Have a Fatherland? How Global and National Efficiency Considerations Influence Economists’ Policy Judgements

Jacob Robert, Fetchenhauer Detlef and Christandl Fabian
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Jacob Robert: Department for Economic and Social Psychology, University of Cologne, Albertus-Magnus-Platz,Köln, Germany
Fetchenhauer Detlef: Department for Economic and Social Psychology, University of Cologne, Albertus-Magnus-Platz,Köln, Germany
Christandl Fabian: Hochschule Fresenius Cologne, University of Applied Sciences, Johannes-Gutenberg-Straße 3,Wiener Neustadt, Austria

German Economic Review, 2014, vol. 15, issue 4, 473-496

Abstract: This study evaluates whether economists support economic policies such as free trade because they deem them to be good for their home country or because they increase global welfare. In a telephone survey, 100 German economists were asked to judge different policy proposals dealing with immigration, military exports and climate policy. Our results show that the acceptance of the policy proposals is strongly influenced by national efficiency judgements. In contrast, global efficiency judgements exert no significant positive effect on policy proposal acceptance. These effects even hold for economists who self-reported a global perspective in the assessment of the policy proposals. These judgements might be based on the potentially erroneous assumption that their policy judgements, taken from a national perspective, are consistent with global interests.

Keywords: Economists; economic policy judgements; immigration policy; climate policy; cosmopolitanism; fairness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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DOI: 10.1111/geer.12017

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